(Bloomberg) -- British businessman David Sullivan, the chairman and largest shareholder of the Premier League’s West Ham United Football Club, has slashed the asking price of his London mansion by £10 million ($13.3 million), bringing it down to £65 million.
The 21,000-square-foot historic town house in Marylebone features striking original Georgian period features, two garages, an elevator, a roof terrace, a pool and sauna, and a full commercial chef’s kitchen. It’s been on the market since late 2023.
“I’m selling it at a loss now, but you have to be realistic,” says Sullivan. He says he spent £27 million to purchase the house outright in 2015 and put in a little under £50 million, taking his total spend to around £75 million.
“The market has changed, there is no doubt about it,” says Paddy Dring, global head of prime sales at Knight Frank LLP, one of the agents on the listing.
Data from Knight Frank show London’s most expensive homes are having a tough time selling, especially those over the £30 million mark, with just 10 sales above that figure in the 12 months to July compared to 38 the previous year. Sullivan, 75, says he knows he’s not selling the house at the most opportune time and that’s why he’s cut the price. He says he renovated the house as a project and chose to sell to get it off his books.
“Interest rates are high—they’re coming down but not much,” Sullivan says. “I also think what the government is doing to the non-doms isn’t very nice, and a lot of rich people are leaving the country as a result of what they anticipate in the budget. Three or four of my friends already have gone to Monaco or Dubai,” says Sullivan, referring to possible changes to the policy that has allowed wealthy foreigners (“non-doms”) living in the UK to avoid local taxes on their overseas earnings for up to 15 years.
There has been increased talk about London’s ultra-rich leaving the capital due to the threat of rising taxes, which could be unveiled in October’s budget by new Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Only a handful of homes above £50 million were sold in London last year, including a town house in Chelsea Barracks for £60 million. Like Sullivan’s home, the Chelsea Barracks home has a spa, cinema, garage and elevator, but it’s a new build.
Sullivan says he just fell in love with the property when he decided to buy it in 2015, calling it a “dilapidated, beautiful monstrosity,” before the work was done. “I may regret buying it now, but it was a moment of weakness,” he recollects, saying he saw the potential of what the house could be again and was keen to take on a project.
At that time, it was owned by convicted fraudster Edward “Fast Eddie” Davenport, who used it to host hedonistic, celebrity-filled parties where the pool was filled with Courvoisier. It was also used as a filming location for videos like Amy Winehouse’s Rehab and the Oscar-winning The King’s Speech starring Colin Firth. Before that, it was the High Commission of Sierra Leone.
“It was grim before, and now it’s one of the most magnificent residences in London,” says Sullivan. He says the project took seven years at nearly double the costs he initially expected. “It needed a lot of TLC. I thought I could do the project for £25 million, but in the end, I wanted the quality to be there,” he says. “I had never done a project this big before, and I didn’t want to do it cheap and nasty.”
In the end, he enlisted MSMR Architects to do the building works on property, originally designed by famous neoclassical architects Robert and James Adam in the 1770s. Interior design was from noted studio 1508 London, known for the Mandarin Oriental Beverly Hills residences and Cape Grace Hotel. The property is being sold fully furnished. The furnishings include handpainted wallpapers and bespoke chandeliers and light fixtures. There’s marble featured throughout the property, from the walls of the pool area to the sink and bathtubs of many of the en suites. Hedges line the walled terrace area, giving a sense of privacy in the middle of London.
The house itself is on Portland Place, just north of Regent Street in the heart of central London, sandwiched by the Chinese and Colombian consulates. The first feature you see upon entry is a grand staircase with ornate Georgian detailing that wouldn’t look out of place on Bridgerton or at a royal palace—indeed the home’s staircase stood in for George’s residence in The King’s Speech. Also on the ground floor is a formal sitting room, with a fun hidden feature: There’s a hydraulic wall with double-leaf mahogany doors that can lower down into the ground with the push of a button to reveal a grand dining room. The agent says the wall was a feature from the 1800s that the household staff would have raised and lowered to the ground via a pulley system meant to impress guests during dinner parties some 200 years ago. The modern architects just took that hidden aspect into the 21st century.
“It’s a mixture of historic and very modern,” says Sullivan. He points out the period detailing and says Historic England was involved in the renovation but that there’s also a new stainless-steel commercial kitchen tucked away on the ground floor, with facilities large enough to cater to 250 guests.
On the lower ground floor, there is a “wellness suite” with a 42-foot pool, hot tub, sauna, gym, massage room and juice bar. There’s also an expansive wine cellar with book-matched marble. The top floor of the house has a bar and roof terrace with views to BT Tower.
The principal bedroom takes up most of the second floor. It features two original period fireplaces, two separate walk-in closets and dressing rooms, and marble bathrooms with free-standing bathtubs and walk-in showers.
In total, there are six stories of space in the main house with five bedrooms. There is also a separate mews house connected to the main property with five additional bedrooms for guest and staff accommodation.
Sullivan says he never lived in the house himself and he always bought it as a project, adding that he wanted to restore what he calls one of the finest historic homes in England. Now that Portland Place is done, he say he’s very proud of the end result and doesn’t want to wait a few years to see if his town house gains in value. He’s motivated to sell now.
“I’m being practical,” says Sullivan. “There’s no point saying it’s worth £85 million. It might be if I hang on long enough, but I’m 75 now, and I’m just ready to get it off the books.”
“I have other things to do with my life,” he adds.
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